Ambivalence
by Respice Finem
Summary: He never thought that his most hated enemy would be an inanimate object. After years of misinterpreting the phrase, he finally understood the saying ‘ignorance is bliss.’


He never thought that his most hated enemy would be an inanimate object.

Of course, there was always the Doctor, who took second place. However, his unrestrained loathing seemed to be directed at none other than the thing he had squandered his life on guarding. For, you see, the Doctor attacked in moderation, but his charge stole his time away ceaselessly and without fail.

He sat, day in and day out, propped up against the side of a cold stone pillar with his arms crossed and one leg drawn up to his chest, glaring at It. The chill of the rock seeped through his fur and into his form and then warmed slightly from his body heat.

And on the few occasions when its safety was threatened, he fought for this most detested abomination against his will and better judgment. Even fewer were the occurrences when a chance strike landed on It, shattering it completely. Its shimmering pieces would leave trails of light in their wake as they dispersed themselves around the globe, managing to ensconce themselves in the most obscure locations possible, forcing him to painstakingly search every corner of the earth until he had gathered every last shard with only his gut feeling to guide him.

Truthfully, he wished his aggressors would just take It away. He wished he could let himself have some peace- No one could steal It if It was destroyed. He wished he could leave It broken and strewn about the world.

But It wouldn't let him.

It would call to him, screaming Its siren's song, cursing him with insomnia and depression until he relented. It would pull him to Itself, chaining him with his own obligation. It would force him to Its will.

There was one time when he had hope that he would finally be released. The beautiful woman who wanted It for herself. The woman who dared to combat him, and almost claimed victory several times before circumstances forced them both to retreat. The woman who searched for Its remnants, somehow sharing his ability to find the pieces.

And then came that fateful day when she had slipped. One misstep on the thin steel girder had sent her plummeting toward the molten lava below. She was his only hope- he rushed to her aid and caught her, gripping her small hand in his massive mitt and using his sheer brawn to heft both his weight and hers back onto the girder.

Then, to his horror, she presented him with the remaining parts of his nightmare.

He tried to cry out, but his throat tightened, squeezing the words from his body. His face wiped itself of expression.

Even in Its own death, It was more powerful than he.

His mouth had moved by itself, voicing his grudging thanks in speech that was not his. His muscles had jerked and he had knelt down, gathering together the shards. His lips twisted and he unified It again.

He looked up at her, shaking. Her eyes were smiling, though her face said otherwise. His fury grew as he realized that she thought she had done him a favor. He calmed himself. His fury was not for her. He turned away and trudged off in the other direction, leaving her behind standing on the girder.

Not two days later, he was sitting on the stone altar once again, staring into Its depths.

It hadn't always been this way. He hadn't always resented It. He had accepted It as his responsibility.

But then It began to show him things.

He would look into It, bathe himself in Its iridescent glow, and It would envelop him. The things he saw were things no man should see.

He saw the end of the world. He saw the fall of empires. He watched cities burn as a helpless onlooker. The sky lit afire as the dried up cavities of former oceans were set aflame. The land was barren and strewn with the rubble of destroyed cities. Shriveled plants fought for life, their stems twisting unnaturally in endless searches for a sun that could no longer be seen through the storms of embers. The corpses of infants and people littered the streets as wars raged. Even at the end of the earth, war prevailed.

He looked into the center of a star as it imploded. Words could not describe the alien light that burned an everlasting image into his eyes. Darkness radiated from the light, stillness resulted from the burst of energy, the impossibly large mass became impossibly small, and colors that he had never known permeated his eyes. The consequence of this vision was a brief bout of insanity.

He watched the futures of those around him play out.

World War III. Nuclear fallout, death by the millions. Drafting. But he was too good for this war. Summa cum laude, honor roll, saved the world, met the President, brilliant, genius, everything and more. Draft slip. No. _No._ He was never a coward, and he wouldn't flee the country. Tails would be drafted into the army. He would heft a firearm, an alien, never before handled firearm that he had sworn he would never use, and become front-line infantry. Cannon fodder. His experience as a pilot would be disregarded. First blood. The look of frozen fear on the enemy's fallen face. One shot to the back. Two shots to the leg. Paralysis. Pain. Victory.

Tails was a mechanic. Tails was a scholar. Now Tails was a war veteran, with scars and an immobile, useless lower half as undeniable proof of it. But Tails was not a doctor. And no one told him not to mix his medication.

Roses at his funeral. Roses and white lilies and a grieving brother who stained the roses with his tears and crushed the white lilies with his clenching hands.

White dress and curled hair and sea green eyes behind a veil. Black tuxedo and sweaty palms and unruly blue slicked back after years of beating against the wind. Lying in bed thinking of a laugh like bells and peach-fuzz hair and little curled toes. Crying in the doctor's office with her husband gripping her shuddering shoulders. Adoption. Their child would play the piano. Graduation. Black caps flying in the air. Cheering, congratulations, shaking of hands. Drinking in the back seat of an old red truck. Never saw the other car coming. Despair. Growing old. Alzheimer's.

After forgetting her husband and departed son, Amy Rose would die, leaving a despairing Sonic to cry hysterically by her bedside.

And the beautiful woman that had saved and condemned him simultaneously would continue as a government agent. Her loveliness and intelligence was more than enough to recommend her to none other than Shadow the Hedgehog. Of all things to kill her, childbirth was what took her in the end, leaving him with their child. Both were immortal- his son ceased aging once he reached 28 years. Shadow and his son would live forever as what many people would mistake as brotherhood, looking on as their friends and what little family they had passed away before them. Eventually both would become victims of suicide. They would be found locked in a post-mortem embrace, sprawled out on the floor of their living room with empty pill bottles scattered on the beige carpet around them.

And himself?

Why, he would die of natural causes.

He would spend decades of his miserable existence guarding It, this damn thing that he despised beyond all reason, this thing that controlled his every move. He was forced to watch his myriad of botched suicide attempts- standing on the edge of the island, more than ready to leap to his certain demise, but unable to do so. Eating some questionable fruit he had found laying around the island, only to wake up with the corrosive substance having been flushed out of his body. Making an effort to drown himself in a nearby spring, and flung out of it by an unrecognizable force that he was sure was not tangible.

He was cursed with this life, with this drawn-out torture, sitting forever against the stone obelisk and staring unblinkingly at the incandescent surface of the monstrosity that somehow could be called magnificent.

But before he could die, before It would let him go, It demanded one last thing. It commanded that he name a successor.

After years of misinterpreting the phrase, he finally understood the saying 'ignorance is bliss.'


End file.
